Amazing hail video from May 22 storm in Fulton Maryland

Stripping leaves from trees, pounding on the ground, hail looked a little like snow cover on am 80F day.

Blue Barn Group

Pop-up thunderstorms were expected but the tornado warnings today were a bit of a surprise. Yes, we had a slight risk of severe storms and got our fair share roll through central Maryland with a cold front, including strong winds and hail. Today's fastest wind was 67 mph at Plum Point, which is south of Chesapeake Beach on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Also, large hail covered the ground similar to what Denver just had a day earlier is not the norm around here. But that’s what happened in spots, and was captured on video by many.

Check out the clip on the left from Andrew Ellinghaus in Fulton, and thanks to my shout out, I had to pick this one to share. A shout out back to you and Blue Barn Group! Listen as you can hear the pounding grow louder… and even deeper with larger stones. Over 2 minutes you will see him racing from one side of the house to another, and at one point his patio was covered… Faith-in-the-hailstones?

Ha!

A few more photos can be seen in the slide show. There were two main cells that produced the problems. One was in Cecil County, but the largest one came out of Frederick and moved east along I-70, then dove south of Baltimore and headed strait for Annapolis. That is the cell that produced the first tornado warning, and it did look impressive on radar (see the last image in the slide show). I will follow up with storm reports, and I am sure there will be plenty of wind damage to show with gusts over 60 mph.

The storms themselves did move quickly, around 40 mph, so they didn’t stick around long. But the traffic was long indeed. Not only along the storm path, which is one of the most highly traveled between Washington and Baltimore, but traffic was limited on the Bay Bridge for a short time as the storm passed just south of the double spans.

Did you know?

If you slice open a hailstone, you will see rings, just like a tree stump. Each one represents a full trip up an down inside the clouds encasing a new layer of ice, until it was too heavy and fell to the ground.

Hail Sizes:

Pea: ¼”

Penny: ¾”

Quarter: 1”

Golf Ball: 1 ¾”

Baseball: 2 ¾”

Softball: 4”

Grapefruit: 4 ½” (See this article from last May showing that in Texas)

Support my efforts: This is a great time to work off the active weather and see the app I made with my son (when he was 6 years old). It won a Parents Choice Award, was listed on Mashable.com's top 10 list of apps to teach kids science, and has been downloaded in 29 countries. We have over 400 items of trivia plus live weather and forecasts for kids. It's available on iTunes and for Android on Google Play and Amazon. See more and links for your device at kidweatherapp.com

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Justin has been doing weather on Baltimore TV since 1997. His degree is from Cornell, he has the CBM- the highest certification from the AMS, and professor at Stevenson University since 2000. A true weather geek and snowhound, he mixes technical forecasting with pop culture, and may lose sleep after a bad forecast. When the tie comes off he likes to play outside and get dirty.